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Well on my way to visit my friend I felt water dropping in my foot. I’m two hours away from home. I pray this is not something serious. I’ll call the mechanic on Monday. 
wendy to check in at the hotel and my reservations were not made. It looks like I never hit saved. Thankfully we got a room. 
 
When it rains it pours 
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Debts
Mortgage −$114,129.10 (-$245.11)Land Loan -$9,543.59 (-$228.86)Hospital Bill - $816.41 (-$75)
Savings
Roth IRAs +$27,892 (+$858)401K +$54,311 (+$2,074)Emergency Fund +$6,085 (-$906)Animal Fund +$269 (-$1,095)Car Fund +$20 (-$0)HSA +$484 (+$385)
Overall: +$1,864.97
Up from the market. All cash accounts are down. On average we are spending over $300 a month more than we make this year. Which is NOT good. Unfortunately there just aren’t a lot of places to cut...
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I’m going to visit a friend who has cancer, as I mentioned before, fear often holds us back. It’s a two-hour drive and I’m fearful to take the ride alone so my ex is going. I’ve got to jump out on faith and just do things. 
 
I rented a room for one night, which cost $82. I could have stayed with my friend but she has cats and I can’t stand them. 
 
I was lucky to get a room at a reduced rate using a few points. Well my ex wanted...
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I bought my home a few years ago, and ever since I’ve started making payments, I always pay a little extra extra towards the principal. Sometimes it’s $10, $800, $60, it’s always something. I swear this was/is the best decision I’ve ever made financially. My goal is to have my mortgage paid off early, and I think it’s going to happen. 
 
When mortgage rates were low, I refinanced. I was nervous as hell to do so but I did. I did some research...
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Well we renewed our lease for another year it is just to much hassle to move right now especially since we still have my mom and nephew living with us till they find a rental (has been 11 months) and it also gives us some time to save towards a house deposit and the rent only went up by $20pw. We also want to go through and declutter when they move out as my hubby can't do a lot of things that he use to since his cancer treatment so will sell a bunch of it...and my daughter is...
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August is starting out with some mild spending. I spent $31 on groceries ($11 over my limit). I'll have to make it up later. I also spent $6 on reusable straws. This was at Aldi. I've spent $4 on laundry, $42 on OTC medications, $12 on dryer sheets (from Sam's), and $16 on clothing from Goodwill -- two tops and a pair of exercise pants, very good buys. 
One of my window air conditioners has pretty much lost its accordian side panels. They are falling apart, and when my son...
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One of my goals for 2023 was to knock out 1/3 of my student loans. I am way benhind on this goal, I've paid just over $2,000. This really ticks me off. I've had so many expenses come up, I can only think that had I not had these this thing would be gone. 
Nothing like crunching the numbers for a reality check. Starting September I'll throw about $1000 a month to it, that's about $4,000 by the end of year. I'm estimating that it will take me two years to pay this thing off. 
Fingers...
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I'm not saying I'm perfect, Lord knows when it came to finances I made some mistakes; however I'm taking those mistakes and learning from it. 
I was chatting with my ex, thank God he no longer lives with me, and he was telling me how hard he was hustling to come up with $700 to fix a roof. $700!
 I don't know why but I felt so bad for him. All I can think was that you are 51 years old, in a job that is high risk that can cause you to stop working in a split  second...
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I was pre-approved for a mortgage loan. I set the purchase rate at $350k - the absolute most I want to spend - with a 20% down payment. The goal is to pay at least $100k down. My mom has offered to give me $100k, but I think it's best that I not take the money. I would rather her keep her money to make life easier for her & my dad.
I'm looking at home purchase about a year from now when my current lease ends, but at least I know what I have qualified for while I'm searching....
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I can claim an all time investment high this month.
TSP $985,217
IRA $292,627
brokerage $86,464
Investments $1,364,308
Savings $28,372
Total $1,392,680
That is $52,044 in investment gains & $52,655 gains over last month. Maybe August will be the month I see one milllion in my TSP? I'm also not far off from $300k in my IRA. I will hopefully see that sometime next year, if not this year.
In other news, I applied for a pre-approved mortgage loan so my credit score took...
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I’m still crunching the numbers but I can say dining out was my second largest expense for July, first was home repairs. 
I’ve committed to eating out less this month. With the exception of visiting a friend who was diagnosed with an illness, and a planned vacation the end of the month, I do not plan on eating out. I’ll post the numbers early next week. 
 
I’ve screwed up badly, I have no idea where my mind is. First I write a check for...
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Hi all. I am back. It has been almost 2 years. I quit work at my high stress job 6/16. I was in severe burnout when I quit. I just took 4 weeks to visit my Ma and national parks.. from Sequoia to Seguaro to Yellowstone/Grand Tetons and all  the ones on the way out and back from Chicago area... also Smokey Mountains. I am getting my national park passport book filled up.  I just got back from my trip last week so settling in and figuring out what I want to do. Health coaching...
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I’m slowly but surely getting my feet wet with investing. I’ve opened an IRA, not much, however, I contribute monthly so that I have funds to invest with. 
 
I only purchase stocks of those organizations that I’m loyal to, some pay dividends some don’t.  I can honestly say, that they’re (stocks) doing pretty good, even in these times. I am happy because I  feel like I made some good choices. I still have a lot to learn...
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Student loan payment kicks back up in October. I wish I was in a position to be much more aggressive with paying things off but hey, I got this thing down to just over $32,0000 when I was close to 90k, so I’m happy with that. I’ve been throwing extra when ever I can, sometimes the amount is as little as $8, by doing this for the month of July I paid $584 towards my student loans. 
 
 
My fence is falling apart so I had to get a replacement, HOA requires...
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So how good of a deal did I get?  Well last week I managed to book me and the two kids round trip tickets to hawaii for $655 total for 3 people.  That works out to $218 per person round trip.
Alaska airlines was having a 2 day sale for BOGO to and from Kona.  So the price of our one way ticket was $103 per person.  That is $309 for all three of us returning from Kona.  Then going the same thing happened except it was $347 for 3 of us or $115 per person. ...
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I spent just a pinch over my $125 grocery budget. An overall very low spend month.
 
Income Total: $1158.76


      $1000 Recurring monthly retirement account distribution  


      $100 Swagbucks and My Points earnings (cash out to PayPal)
      $58.76 Income tax refund money


       


Total Spending: $1158.76


 Fixed...
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What a month this was. Not only did I have the vacation in Oregon, but I just got back from a long weekend at my brother's house. I went up to attend a memorial service for my sister's ex-husband. In addition to that, we did some eating out, and of course there was gas to buy. 
And then there was the semi-annual auto insurance payment.
Here is how it all broke down:
Insurance - $1180
Housing - $769
Vacation/Travel - $631
Utilities - $201
Fees/Services - $190 (Traffic...
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It was a month of gains in the retirement accounts even though we didn't manage to contribute anything to them. Between stock market gains and mortgage paydown our net worth went up over $25K!
In terms of CoastFIRE, it's hard to do a calculation since most of our income is now freelance and I'm not sure when or how much I'll be able to contribute. My freelance business is slowly building at this point so I'm not at a point where I have anything left over after bills, but I hope...
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I hate winter it has been so cold, wet, windy and dreary almost everyday for 3 months..we occassionally see the sun peek through the clouds...but not often...so everyone has been feeling a bit down that we can't get out more into nature, beach etc....but we have had some unexpected things happen...first 2 things happened to our car that we have never had happen before...the seatbelt latch broke in the car so you couldn't do the seatbelt up...so one was ordered..we got it fixed...it...
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My refrigerator chose to die on the hottest day of the year.
Actually, it IS repairable, but would cost more than a thousand to repair, so I was advised to go shopping instead.
And I can't really complain--the machine is 29 years old!  (The previous homeowner left me all the manuals for appliances and things she'd purchased that stayed with the house.)
In the meantime, it's actually not 100% dead yet, just dying, and a purchase of two big bags of ice from the convenience...
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